Editor’s note: As the World Cup continues in the United States for the first time since 1994, The Athletic is looking back at college sports in the 1990s and how much has changed since then. Join us for a couple of weeks of offseason football and basketball nostalgia.
Before Duke basketball’s evolution in the 1990s, the Blue Devils were widely seen in a way that seems unfathomable today: as lovable underdogs.
Yes, really.
“Like America’s team,” said Jeff Capel, a Duke guard from 1993-97. “America’s darlings.”
Knowing that Duke eventually became one of college basketball’s premier blue bloods, so relentlessly good it became easy to hate, that sentiment is tough to swallow. But nothing better underscores how dramatic a transformation the Blue Devils underwent in the 1990s, their golden era, than the complete upending of that characterization.
From upstart, to overrated. Beloved to bemoaned.
And on the court, from challenger to champion.
Fundamentally, Duke’s rise during the 1990s was about basketball. But it was also a case of larger circumstances coalescing: the growth of TV and the earliest inklings of the internet; college sports’ broadening cultural impact; and race and class.
Duke had some hoops history when Mike Krzyzewski arrived in 1980, but nothing compared to Tobacco Road rivals North Carolina and NC State, both of which had previously won national titles — and would again from 1980-83, while Krzyzewski was instead toiling to a 38-47 record.
But as Duke improved year-by-year, breaking through to Krzyzewski’s first Final Four in 1986, that dichotomy only fueled fan support. Amid the Blue Devils’ ascent and Krzyzewski playing foil to established coaches like Dean Smith and Jim Valvano, Duke’s popularity surged.
“People rooted for the plucky young coach and program,” said Mike Cragg, Duke’s former longtime senior administrator for men’s basketball.
That perception, of course, didn’t last. In 1991, only a year after a 30-point drubbing to UNLV in the national title game, Duke upset that same Runnin’ Rebels core in the Final Four en route to Krzyzewski’s first championship — at which point, everything changed for the Blue Devils forever.
A year of rock star-like treatment ensued for Coach K and players such as Christian Laettner, Bobby Hurley and Grant Hill. Duke went wire-to-wire No. 1 and became the first back-to-back champion since John Wooden’s UCLA dynasty. That run set the foundation for the rest of Krzyzewski’s legendary tenure with the Blue Devils, which included three more national championships (in 2001, 2010 and 2015) before his retirement in 2022. Along the way, the Blue Devils became synonymous with the Cameron Crazies and annual dominance.
But all that winning, as it often does in sports, also quickly turned off the same masses who’d supported Duke during its climb in the 1980s.
“Probably the last time,” Cragg joked, “that everybody loved us.”
What is often overlooked about Duke in the ’90s, though, is what came next. The turning point the program faced. The spring of 1995, when Krzyzewski — overcome by back pain and burnout — stepped away from coaching at 46 with no assurances he’d return.
“That shook the program,” said Jay Bilas, a Duke assistant coach from 1990-92 and a longtime ESPN analyst. “That was a scary period. Because you had it going. … ‘Can we get it back?’ was the feeling.”
Four seasons later, Krzyzewski assembled a roster that included five future top-15 NBA draft picks and led the Blue Devils to the 1999 national title game, where they were upset by UConn. The program’s return to its previous heights also resulted from a larger strategy implemented following ’95, one that still fuels the Duke machine today.
“When Coach K was hurt and out, that’s really when the transformation started,” Cragg said. “We had to build the infrastructure and the legacy so when Coach K is gone, the program sustains.”
In Duke’s case, everything seemed to overlap in one sprawling Venn diagram, as a private school in the South morphed into a global phenomenon.
“You have some unique circumstances that align there, to take us from ‘the launching pad into orbit’ in short order,” said Harvard coach Tommy Amaker, a Duke assistant from 1988-1997 who also coached Seton Hall and Michigan.
More than at any point in history, fans could actually watch as Duke started to become a household name. The TV explosion of the 1980s — and especially of ESPN — amplified Duke’s exposure, right as the Blue Devils were starting to make regular postseason runs. Krzyzewski, who declined to be interviewed for this story, understood that value better than most, and willingly contorted his schedule to maximize his program’s airtime. It wasn’t uncommon for Duke to play a Saturday conference road game, only to rush home for another televised game the next day.
Later on, during Duke’s back-to-back title seasons in ’91 and ’92, that television exposure multiplied tenfold, just in time for ESPN2 to debut in 1993.
“When you’re getting recruited, it wasn’t a sales pitch at all,” said Kenny Blakeney, a Duke guard from 1991-95 and currently Howard’s head coach. “You just knew that there was going to be 30-plus games nationally televised on TV if you played there.”
The Blue Devils brand quickly rose to new heights, but Krzyzewski wasn’t satisfied. When Capel returned to Durham as an assistant coach in 2011, he remembers Krzyzewski telling him about walking through Raleigh-Durham International Airport early in the 1990s and being frustrated by the lack of Duke apparel for sale.
In 1993, Duke switched from longtime apparel partner Adidas to Nike. With Air Jordan at the peak of its prominence — right as Michael Jordan’s Chicago Bulls dynasty was getting off the ground — Krzyzewski envisioned that Duke’s brand could similarly explode.
“You had the force multipliers of television, and Nike was a big deal, so everything kind of shot up,” Bilas said. “Like riding a big wave, and the wave kept getting bigger.”
Before long, Duke’s fame — not just Krzyzewski, but also his stars — had transcended the sports sphere.
Laettner was named one of People magazine’s 50 Most Beautiful People in 1992 before he’d even graduated college. A few years later, Tupac Shakur was photographed wearing Capel’s No. 5 jersey during an MTV News appearance.
“You had one of the biggest rappers in the world wearing a Duke jersey,” said Chris Carrawell, a Duke forward from 1996-2000 and current assistant coach. “That let you know that, now, Duke had crossed over.”
Of course, that fame wasn’t all positive — and it wasn’t all about on-court success, either.
Some college basketball fans simply tired of Duke winning. “You see that a lot in sports,” said Capel, currently Pittsburgh’s head coach. “The New England Patriots were beloved … until they weren’t. Tom Brady was beloved … until he won too much and people got tired of it.”
But in Duke’s case, the ire the program elicited was part of a larger cultural polarization. It proliferated in the 1991 Final Four.
In undefeated UNLV, Jerry Tarkanian had a team that was the antithesis of Duke. The Runnin’ Rebels played with overwhelming swag and style in Sin City, not to mention regularly scoring over 100 points. But recruiting violations and off-court misconduct — such as unpaid telephone bills and hotel charges — led the national media to portray the Runnin’ Rebels as college hoops’ bad boys.
That, coupled with the fact that several of UNLV’s key contributors were Black, clashed with Duke’s perceived privilege and cast of stars, several of whom were White.
“It was almost like a racial split, to be honest with you,” Blakeney said. “You had a portion of the Black community that really respected and liked, and some loved, Duke — and a huge part of the Black community that resonated with UNLV, or Michigan (and the Fab Five) or Georgetown.”
“If you grew up in my neighborhood, you didn’t relate to those guys,” said Carrawell, who grew up in St. Louis and eventually starred for the Blue Devils. “You related to the UNLVs and the Michigans.”
Capel added: “The perception of Duke during that time, was elitism, super White, smart — and you think you’re better than.”
Duke’s popularity in the 1990s transcended college sports. (John Biever / Sports Illustrated via Getty Images)
ESPN’s 2015 documentary “I Hate Christian Laettner” centered on that clash of cultures and Laettner being White. That context, combined with Laettner’s dominance as an All-American, combined to make him one of college basketball’s most iconic villains.
In the 1992 Elite Eight, with Duke’s sixth Final Four in seven seasons on the line, Laettner infamously stomped on Kentucky’s Aminu Timberlake mid-game, but somehow avoided ejection. He went on to hit “The Shot” that kept Duke’s quest for a second straight title alive. Two months later, Laettner was selected over Shaquille O’Neal as the lone collegian on the 1992 Olympic Dream Team — for which Krzyzewski served as an assistant coach.
Put together, Duke created a crest of animosity that still resonates. Even after what came next.
Months after Duke lost to Arkansas in the 1994 national championship game, Krzyzewski suffered a ruptured disc in his back, eventually undergoing surgery that October.
Doctors advised against a quick return. Instead, he held a staff meeting at his house two days after leaving the hospital and was back at practice within a week.
By Christmas, Krzyzewski was exhausted and in severe pain. By early January, doctors mandated Krzyzewski take an indefinite leave from coaching. He would miss the rest of the 1994-95 season.
The Blue Devils, having finally lost Laettner, Hurley and Hill, limped to a 4-15 record under interim coach Pete Gaudet, finishing with a school-record 18 losses and missing the NCAA Tournament.
“Probably the worst team ever at Duke,” Capel joked. “It was after that that you started to see things change, as far as the infrastructure.”
The painful season forced Duke to seriously contemplate its long-term trajectory. Krzyzewski was only 47, but after Valvano (who became one of his closest friends) died at the same age in 1993, Krzyzewski was especially attuned to his well-being. And watching his team struggle, he realized that to return — not just physically, but to the peak of college hoops — he’d have to make structural changes to prevent that same burnout from sabotaging what he’d built.
When Krzyzewski returned in the summer, his first course of action was staff turnover and becoming a better delegator. “At that time,” Bilas said, “he was responsible for everything.” He hired younger assistants — first Quin Snyder and Tim O’Toole, and later Johnny Dawkins and fellow class of ‘86er Dave Henderson — who could inject energy and assume larger roles in practice. O’Toole also became the last Krzyzewski assistant not to have played at Duke.
“Very intentional act on his part,” Cragg said. “He knew that his (former) players could say it better than he could to younger people, and in their own voices.”
Krzyzewski’s time away also coincided with the growth of “none-and-done,” where top high schoolers — like Kevin Garnett in 1995 — skipped college to go straight to the NBA. Until then, Krzyzewski had always prioritized players likely to stay in school all four years. But with elite talent opting to go pro more quickly, his calculus had to change.
“He was looking at it going, wait a minute,” Bilas recalled. “You want to come here — and if we don’t take them, we’re going to have to play against them.”
Taking those players eventually became a no-brainer — especially after Elton Brand, Corey Maggette and Will Avery played key roles on Duke’s ’99 runner-up squad.
Another key piece of Duke’s recruiting pivot? Targeting prospects from “different backgrounds,” in Carrawell’s words. He was one of the first of that trend, a McDonald’s All-American who wound up going somewhere he never envisioned himself as a kid.
“Kyrie Irving, if that explosion hadn’t happened, is probably a St. John’s or a Syracuse guard,” Blakeney said, “because of the way he played and being a Northern Jersey, New York kind of guy.”
But no strategic initiative was more important than a concept that came to be called the Legacy Fund.
In 1998, Snyder introduced Krzyzewski to another of his mentors: Morgan Stanley CEO John Mack, a Duke graduate and member of the university’s Board of Trustees.
At the time, Krzyzewski had begun dreaming of a new practice facility. But finding the finances for the project, at least within the athletic department, had proven troublesome.
“John could catch the vibe of some of Coach K’s frustrations around getting things done around money,” Cragg said. “All of that added up to John and him saying, ‘You’ve just got to raise your money yourself.’”
A year later, the Legacy Fund was born.
Duke already had a broader athletic department fundraising arm called the Iron Dukes, but the Legacy Fund was a unique entity in college sports at the time, established solely for men’s basketball. It was also, by design, exclusive. A $1 million minimum financial contribution to join made sure of that.
“It takes, especially now, a huge financial commitment to win, and there has to be alignment across the board — and Legacy provided that,” Capel said. “Duke could continue to have these grand ideas and be able to execute them.”
As the fund grew, it wasn’t just a practice facility (which broke ground in 2006) that followed. Duke could fly charter, enhancing its player experience. Upgrade its weight room. Provide any and everything necessary to drive winning.
But Krzyzewski was also forward-thinking enough to know that replenishing his program’s coffers would require a vast Rolodex. And so, he borrowed a page from the playbook of one of Duke’s greatest rivals: North Carolina legend Michael Jordan. Jordan started a Flight School fantasy camp in 1997, charging fans 34 and older $15,000 for a four-day experience that featured “coaching” by some of the sport’s best — including Krzyzewski.
In 2002, K Academy launched, connecting Krzyzewski directly to established and deep-pocketed businesspeople.
“The proceeds from (K Academy) went to his mother’s foundation, the Emily K Center for Youth Education,” Bilas said, “but all these high net-worth individuals started giving money to the program.”
By the time Cragg left in 2018 to become St. John’s athletic director, he said the Legacy Fund had raised over $110 million. That continues to help Duke remain atop the sport.
Krzyzewski retired in 2022, tapping Jon Scheyer — a captain on Duke’s 2010 title team — as his successor. Scheyer has gone 124-25 to start his tenure, the most wins by any Division-I coach through his first four seasons, leading Duke to three consecutive Elite Eights and the 2025 Final Four. Though the program’s championship drought is now 11 seasons long, the overall Duke machine has endured as designed.
Exactly as the ’90s set it up for.
